Updated: July 16, 2020 (July 25, 2017)

Visual Studio 2017 Brings Faster Update Cycle

Before joining Directions on Microsoft, Rob worked at Microsoft for 14 years where he designed technologies for Microsoft products and... more

Visual Studio (VS) 2017, which became generally available in Mar. 2017, employs a new update delivery cycle. Updates, which can contain new features and bug fixes, are delivered approximately monthly rather than approximately quarterly as they have been in recent previous VS versions. The second VS 2017 update is generally available, and the third is in preview. Microsoft plans to always provide a preview of the next upcoming update as further updates are delivered. Development teams may benefit from the faster delivery of new functionality and fixes, but the new cadence could introduce upgrading, training, stability, and compatibility issues.

Updates Bring Features, Fixes, New Numbering Scheme

VS updates deliver improvements to the integrated development environment (IDE), such as the following:

Code editor, debugging, and diagnostics features
Programming language additions and enhancements
Support for the latest frameworks and third-party tools, such as .NET Core and JetBrains

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